The Flying U's Last Stand

  CHAPTER 14. JUST ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER

  A gray clarity of the air told that daylight was near. The skylineretreated, the hills came out of the duskiness like a photograph in thedeveloper tray. Irish dipped down the steep slope into Antelope Coulee,cursing the sprinkle of new shacks that stood stark in the dawn onevery ridge and every hilltop, look where one might. He loped along thewinding trail through the coulee's bottom and climbed the hill beyond.At the top he glanced across the more level upland to the east and hiseyes lightened. Far away stood a shack--Patsy's, that was. Beyond thatanother, and yet another. Most of the boys had built in the couleeswhere was water. They did not care so much about the view--over whichMiss Allen had grown enthusiastic.

  He pulled up in a certain place near the brow of the hill, and lookeddown into the narrower gulch where huddled the shacks they had moved. Hegrinned at the sight. His hand went involuntarily to his pocket and thegrin widened. He hurried on that he might the sooner tell the boys oftheir good luck; all the material for that line fence bought and paidfor--there would certainly laugh when they heard where the money hadcome from!

  First he thought that he would locate the cattle and tell his news tothe boys on guard. He therefore left the trail and rode up on a ridgefrom which he could overlook the whole benchland, with the exception ofcertain gulches that cut through. The sky was reddening now, save wherebanked clouds turned purple. A breeze crept over the grass and carriedthe fresh odor of rain. Close beside him a little brown bird chitteredbriskly and flew away into the dawn.

  He looked away to where the Bear Paws humped, blue-black against thesky, the top of Old Baldy blushing faintly under the first sun rays. Helooked past Wolf Butte, where the land was blackened with outcroppingsof rock. His eyes came back leisurely to the claim country. A faintsurprise widened his lids, and he turned and sent a glance sweeping tothe right, toward Flying U Coulee. He frowned, and studied the benchland carefully.

  This was daybreak, when the cattle should be getting out for theirbreakfast-feed. They should be scattered along the level just beforehim. And there were no cattle anywhere in sight. Neither were there anyriders in sight. Irish gave a puzzled grunt and turned in his saddle,looking back toward Dry Lake. That way, the land was more broken, andhe could not see so far. But as far as he could see there were no cattlethat way either. Last night when he rode to town the cattle of thecolonists had been feeding on the long slope three or four miles fromwhere he stood, across Antelope Coulee where he had helped the boysdrive them.

  He did not waste many minutes studying the empty prairie from thevantage point of that ridge, however. The keynote of Irish's naturewas action. He sent his horse down the southern slope to the level, andbegan looking for tracks, which is the range man's guide-book. He wasnot long in finding a broad trail, in the grass where cattle had latelycrossed the coulee from the west. He knew what that meant, and he sworewhen he saw how the trail pointed straight to the east--to the broken,open country beyond One Man Coulee. What had the boys been thinkingof, to let that nester stock get past them in the night? What had theline-riders been doing? They were supposed to guard against just such amove as this.

  Irish was sore from his fight in town, and he had not had much sleepduring the past forty-eight hours, and he was ravenously hungry. Hefollowed the trail of the cattle until he saw that they certainly hadgotten across the Happy Family claims and into the rough country beyond;then he turned and rode over to Patsy's shack, where a blue smoke columnwobbled up to the fitful air-current that seized it and sent it flyingtoward the mountains.

  There he learned that Dry Lake had not hugged to itself all the eventsof the night. Patsy, smoking a pipefull of Durham while he waited forthe teakettle to boil, was wild with resentment. In the night, whilehe slept, something had heaved his cabin up at one corner. In a minuteanother corner heaved upward a foot or more. Patsy had yelled while hefelt around in the darkness for his clothes, and had got no answer, saveother heavings from below.

  Patsy was not the man to submit tamely to such indignities. He hadgroped and found his old 45-70 riffle, that made a noise like a youngcannon and kicked like a broncho cow. While the shack lurched this wayand that, Patsy pointed the gun toward the greatest disturbance andfired. He did not think: he hit anybody, but he apologized to Irish formissing and blamed the darkness for the misfortune. Py cosh, he suretried--witness the bullet holes which he had bored through the foursides of the shack; he besought Irish to count them; which Irish didgravely. And what happened then?

  Then? Why, then the Happy Family had come; or at least all those who hadbeen awake and riding the prairie had come pounding up out of the dark,their horses running like rabbits, their blood singing the song ofbattle. They had grappled with certain of the enemy--Patsy broke openthe door and saw tangles of struggling forms in the faint starlight.The Happy Family were not the type of men who must settle every argumentwith a gun, remember. Not while their hands might be used to fight with.Patsy thought that they licked the nesters without much trouble. Heknew that the settlers ran, and that the Happy Family chased them clearacross the line and then came back and let the shack down where itbelonged upon the rock underpining.

  "Und py cosh! Dey vould move my shack off'n my land!" he gruntedragefully as he lived over the memory.

  Irish went to the door and looked out. The wind had risen in the lasthalf hour, so that his hat went sailing against the rear wall, but hedid not notice that. He was wondering why the settlers had made thisnight move against Patsy. Was it an attempt to irritate the boys to somereal act of violence--something that would put them in fear of the law?Or was it simply a stratagem to call off the night-guard so that theymight slip their cattle across into the breaks? They must have countedon some disturbance which would reach the ears of the boys on guard. IfPatsy had not begun the bombardment with his old rifle, they would verylikely have fired a few shots themselves--enough to attract attention.With that end in view, he could see why Patsy's shack had been chosenfor the attack. Patsy's shack was the closest to where they had beenholding the cattle. It was absurdly simple, and evidently the ruse hadworked to perfection.

  "Where are the boys at now?" he asked abruptly, turning to Patsy who hadrisen and knocked the ashes from his pipe and was slicing bacon.

  "Gone after the cattle. Dey stampede alreatty mit all der noise," Patsygrowled, with his back to Irish.

  So it was just as Irish had suspected. He faced the west and thegathering bank of "thunder heads" that rode swift on the wind andmuttered sullenly as they rode, and he hesitated. Should he go after theboys and help them round up the stock and drive it back, or should hestay where he was and watch the claims? There was that fence--he mustsee to that, too.

  He turned and asked Patsy if all the boys were gone. But Patsy did notknow.

  Irish stood in the doorway until breakfast was ready whereupon he satdown and ate hurriedly--as much from habit as from any present need ofhaste. A gust of wind made the flimsy cabin shake, and Patsy went toclose the door against its sudden fury.

  "Some riders iss coming now," he said, and held the door half closedagainst the wind. "It ain't none off der boys," he added, with thecertainty which came of his having watched, times without number, whilethe various members of the Happy Family rode in from the far horizons tocamp. "Pilgrims, I guess--from der ridin'."

  Irish grunted and reached for the coffee pot, giving scarce a thought toPatsy's announcement. While he poured his third cup of coffee he made asudden decision. He would get that fence off his mind, anyway.

  "Say, Patsy, I've rustled wire and posts--all we'll need. I guess I'lljust turn this receipt over to you and let you get busy. You take theteam and drive in today and get the stuff headed out here pronto.The nesters are shipping in more stock--I heard in town that they'rebringing in all they can rustle, thinkin' the stock will pay big moneywhile the claims are getting ready to produce. I heard a couple of markstelling each other just how it was going to work out so as to put 'emall on Easy Street--the d
arned chumps! Free grass--that's what theyharped on; feed don't cost anything. All yuh do is turn 'em loose andwait till shippin' season, and then collect. That's what they weretalking.

  "The sooner that fence is up the better. We can't put in the wholesummer hazing their cattle around. I've bought the stuff and paid forit. And here's forty dollars you can use to hire it hauled out here.Us fellows have got to keep cases on the cattle, so you 'tend to thisfence." He laid the money and Fred's receipt upon the table and setPatsy's plate over them to hold them safe against the wind that rattledthe shack. He had forgotten all about the three approaching riders,until Patsy turned upon him sharply.

  "Vot schrapes you been into now?" he demanded querulously. "Py coshyou done somet'ings. It's der conshtable comin' alreatty. I bet you bepinched."

  "I bet I don't," Irish retorted, and made for the one window, whichlooked toward the hills. "Feed 'em some breakfast, Patsy. And you drivein and tend to that fencing right away, like I told you."

  He threw one long leg over the window sill, bent his lean body to passthrough the square opening, and drew the other leg outside. He startledhis horse, which had walked around there out of the wind, but he caughtthe bridle-reins and led him a few steps farther where he would be outof the direct view from the window. Then he stopped and listened.

  He heard the three ride up to the other side of the shack and shout toPatsy. He heard Patsy moving about inside, and after a brief delay openthe door. He heard the constable ask Patsy if he knew anything aboutIrish, and where he could be found; and he heard Patsy declare that hehad enough to do without keeping track of that boneheaded cowpuncher whowas good for nothing but to fight and get into schrapes.

  After that he heard Patsy ask the constable if they had had anybreakfast before leaving town. He heard certain saddle-sounds whichtold of their dismounting in response to the tacit invitation. And then,pulling his hat firmly down upon his head, Irish led his horse quietlydown into a hollow behind the shack, and so out of sight and hearing ofthose three who sought him.

  He did not believe that he was wanted for anything very serious; theymeant to arrest him, probably, for laying out those two gamblers witha chair and a bottle of whisky respectively. A trumped-up charge, verylikely, chiefly calculated to make him some trouble and to eliminatehim from the struggle for a time. Irish did not worry at all over theirreason for wanting him, but he did not intend to let them come closeenough to state their errand, because he did not want to become guiltyof resisting an officer--which would be much worse than fighting nesterswith fists and chairs and bottles and things.

  In the hollow he mounted and rode down the depression and debouched uponthe wide, grassy coulee where lay a part of his own claim. He was notsure of the intentions of that constable, but he took it for grantedthat he would presently ride on to Irish's cabin in search of him; alsothat he would look for him further, and possibly with a good deal ofpersistence; which would be a nuisance and would in a measure hamper themovements and therefore the usefulness of Irish. For that reason he wasresolved to take no chance that could be avoided.

  The sun slid behind the scurrying forerunners of the storm and struggledunavailingly to shine through upon the prairie land. From where he wasIrish could not see the full extent of the storm-clouds, and while hehad been on high land he had been too absorbed in other matters to paymuch attention. Even now he did no more than glance up casually at theinky mass above him, and decided that he would do well to ride on to hiscabin and get his slicker.

  By the time he reached his shack the storm was beating up against thewind which had turned unexpectedly to the northeast. Mutterings ofthunder grew to sharper booming. It was the first real thunderstorm ofthe season, but it was going to be a hard one, if looks meant anything.Irish went in and got his slicker and put it on, and then hesitated overriding on in search of the cattle and the men in pursuit of them.

  Still, the constable might take a notion to ride over this way in spiteof the storm. And if he came there would be delay, even if there werenothing worse. So Irish, being one to fight but never to stand idle,mounted again and turned his long-suffering horse down the coulee as thestorm swept up.

  First a few large drops of rain pattered upon the earth and left blobsof wet where they fell. His horse shook its head impatiently and wentsidling forward until an admonitory kick from Irish sent him straightdown the dim trail. Then the clouds opened recklessly the headgates andlet the rain down in one solid rush of water that sluiced the hillsidesand drove muddy torrents down channels that had been dry since the snowleft.

  Irish bent his head so that his hat shielded somewhat his face, androde doggedly on. It was not the first time that he had been out in asmashing, driving thunderstorm, and it would not be his last if hislife went on logically as he had planned it. But it was not the morecomfortable because it was an oft-repeated experience. And when thefirst fury had passed and still it rained steadily and with no promiseof a let-up, his optimism suffered appreciably.

  His luck in town no longer cheered him. He began to feel the loss ofsleep and the bone-weariness of his fight and the long ride afterwards.His breakfast was the one bright spot, and saved him from the gnawingdiscomfort of an empty stomach--at first.

  He went into One Man Coulee and followed it to the arm that wouldlead to the rolling, ridgy open land beyond, where the "breaks" of theBadlands reached out to meet the prairie. He came across the track ofthe herd, and followed it to the plain. Once out in the open, however,the herd had seemed to split into several small bunches, each going ina different direction. Which puzzled Irish a little at first. Later, hethought he understood.

  The cattle, it would seem, had been driven purposefully into the edge ofthe breaks and there made to scatter out through the winding gulchesand canyons that led deeper into the Badlands. It was the trick ofrange-men--he could not believe that the strange settlers, ignorantof the country and the conditions, would know enough to do this. Hehesitated before several possible routes, the rain pouring downupon him, a chill breeze driving it into his face. If there had beenhoofprints to show which way the boys had gone, the rain had washed themso that they looked dim and old and gave him little help.

  He chose what seemed to him the gorge which the boys would be mostlikely to follow--especially at night and if they were in open pursuitof those who had driven the cattle off the benchland; and that thecattle had been driven beyond this point was plain enough, for otherwisehe would have overtaken stragglers long before this.

  It was nearing noon when he came out finally upon a little, open flatand found there Big Medicine and Pink holding a bunch of perhaps ahundred cattle which they had gleaned from the surrounding gulches andlittle "draws" which led into the hills. The two were wet to the skin,and they were chilled and hungry and as miserable as a she-bear sent upa tree by yelping, yapping dogs.

  Big Medicine it was who spied him first through the haze of fallingwater, and galloped heavily toward him, his horse flinging off greatpads of mud from his feet as he came.

  "Say!" he bellowed when he was yet a hundred yards away. "Got any grubwith yuh?"

  "No!" Irish called back.

  "Y'AIN'T" Big Medicine's voice was charged with incredulous reproach."What'n hell yuh doin' here without GRUB? Is Patsy comin' with thewagon?"

  "No. I sent Patsy on in to town after--"

  "Town? And us out here--" Big Medicine choked over his wrongs.

  Irish waited until he could get in a word and then started to explain.But Pink rode up with his hatbrim flapping soggily against one drippingcheek when the wind caught it, and his coat buttoned wherever there werebuttons, and his collar turned up, and looking pinched and draggled andwholly miserable.

  "Say! Got anything to eat?" he shouted when he came near, his voiceeager and hopeful.

  "No!" snapped Irish with the sting of Big Medicine's vituperationsrankling fresh in his soul.

  "Well why ain't yuh? Where's Patsy?" Pink came closer and eyed thenewcomer truculently.

  "
How'n hell do I know?" Irish was getting a temper to match their own.

  "Well, why don't yuh know? What do yuh think you're out here for? Totell us you think it's going to rain? If we was all of us like you,there'd be nothing to it for the nester-bunch. It's a wonder you comealive enough to ride out this way at all! I don't reckon you've even gotanything to drink!" Pink paused a second, saw no move toward producinganything wet and cheering, and swore disgustedly. "Of course not! Youneeded it all yourself! So help me Josephine, if I was as low-downornery as some I could name I'd tie myself to a mule's tail and let himkick me to death! Ain't got any grub! Ain't got--"

  Irish interrupted him then with a sentence that stung. Irish, remember,distinctly approved of himself and his actions. True, he had forgottento bring anything to eat with him, but there was excuse for that in thehaste with which he had left his own breakfast. Besides how could hebe expected to know that the cattle had been driven away down here, andscattered, and that the Happy Family would not have overtaken them longbefore? Did they think he was a mind-reader?

  Pink, with biting sarcasm, retorted that they did not. That it took amind to read a mind. He added that, from the looks of Irish, he musthave started home drunk, anyway, and his horse had wandered this far ofhis own accord. Then three or four cows started up a gulch to the rightof them and Pink, hurling insults over his shoulder, rode off to turnthem back. So they did not actually come to blows, those two, thoughthey were near it.

  Big Medicine lingered to bawl unforgivable things at; Irish, andIrish shouted back recklessly that they had all acted like a bunch ofsheepherders, or the cattle would never have been driven off the benchat all. He declared that anybody with the brains of a sick sage henwould have stopped the thing right in the start. He said other thingsalso.

  Big Medicine said things in reply, and Pink, returning to the scene withhis anger grown considerably hotter from feeding upon his discomfort,made a few comments pertinent to the subject of Irish's shortcomings.

  You may scarcely believe it, unless you have really lived, and havelearned how easily small irritations grow to the proportions of realtrouble, and how swiftly--but this is a fact: Irish and Big Medicinebecame so enraged that they dismounted simultaneously and Irish jerkedoff his slicker while Big Medicine was running up to smash him for someneedless insult.

  They fought, there in the rain and the mud and the chill wind thatwhipped their wet cheeks. They fought just as relentlessly as thoughthey had long been enemies, and just as senselessly as though they werenot grown men but schoolboys. They clinched and pounded and smasheduntil Pink sickened at the sight and tore them apart and swore at themfor crazy men and implored them to have some sense. They let the cattlethat had been gathered with so much trouble drift away into the gulchesand draws where they must be routed out of the brush again, or perhapslost for days in that rough country.

  When the first violence of their rage had like the storm settled to acold steadiness of animosity, the two remounted painfully and turnedback upon each other.

  Big Medicine and Pink drew close together as against a common foe, andIrish cursed them both and rode away--whither he did not know nor care.